Tentacle

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chemical sensitivity

...or more pores in this protective covering. In some invertebrates sensilla are found all over the body, including on the legs, cerci, and wing margins. In polychaetes the sensilla are often borne on tentacles.

...is driven, possibly by ciliary movement, into the extensive vomeronasal organs. In another group of amphibians, the burrowing wormlike caecilians, chemicals are carried to the vomeronasal organs via tentacles. Directly in front of each eye is a small pore leading to a sac that contains a tentacle. The tentacle can be extended through the pore by hydrostatic pressure to make contact with the...

food procurement

...are minute hairlike projections of cell membranes that, by concerted beating in wave rhythm, set up water currents or physically move food particles.C. Tentacular (e.g., certain sea cucumbers). Tentacles are slender, flexible organs on the head. They may function in sensory perception and in actually securing food.D. Mucoid (e.g., many snails, such as Vermetus). In this case, the...

form and function in

beardworms

The tentacles, probably used during feeding, vary in number according to body size. The tentacles are long processes containing blood vessels and are continuous with the body cavity, or coelom. Rows of very thin single-celled units called pinnules are found on the tentacles. The pinnules, which extend into the intertentacular cavity formed by the free or fused tentacles, intermesh to form a...

bivalves

Again reflecting the sedentary life, sensory functions are largely taken over by the posterior mantle margins and typically comprise tentacles developed from the middle mantle folds that are mechanoreceptors and chemoreceptors. Scallops (family Pectinidae) have complex eyes with a lens and retina. In other bivalves, eyes are simple ciliated cups, although some variation is possible. In the...

cephalopods

...Mollusca in basic structure, and the ancestors appear to have the closest affinity with the ancestors of the class Gastropoda. The best-known feature of the cephalopods is the possession of arms and tentacles, eight or 10 in most forms but about 90 in Nautilus. Except for the nautilus, all living members of the class show great modification and reduction of the characteristic molluscan...

...and sutures). In living forms, except for the Sepioidea, the shell is strongly degenerate or missing and the characters used consist of details of the soft parts: presence or absence of an eyelid, tentacles retractile or contractile or both, shape and size of fins, number of arms, number of sucker rows, presence or absence of teeth and hooks on arm and tentacular suckers, radular dentition,...

cnidarians

The body of a medusa, commonly called a jellyfish, usually has the shape of a bell or an umbrella, with tentacles hanging downward at the margin. The tubelike manubrium hangs from the centre of the bell, connecting the mouth at the lower end of the manubrium to the coelenteron within the bell. Most medusae are slow-swimming, planktonic animals. In contrast, the mouth and surrounding tentacles...

ctenophores

...the cilia beat, the effective stroke is toward the statocyst, so that the animal normally swims oral end first. The more primitive forms (order Cydippida) have a pair of long, retractable branched tentacles that function in the capture of food. The tentacles are richly supplied with adhesive cells called colloblasts, which are found only among ctenophores. These cells produce a sticky...

gastropods

Generally, the head is bilaterally symmetrical, bearing one or two pairs of tentacles, often with accessory palps, and the mouth in the middle of the ventral margin. In stylommatophoran land snails the upper tentacles, or ommatophores, are invaginable (capable of being rolled in), and the eyes are borne at the tips. In freshwater basommatophorans and most prosobranchs the eyes are located at...

suctorians

The suctorians are ciliate predators that usually possess tentacles of two functional types: feeding tentacles and piercing tentacles. The latter trap and immobilize the prey, usually other ciliates that make chance contact with the outstretched tentacles of the suctorian. The cell contents of the prey are transported up through the feeding tentacles into the suctorian, where digestive vacuoles...

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